The future of revamped Mad Max movies.

[Taipan]

I've been thinking about the direction of future Mad Max movies in light of what Fury Road showed us and in relation to the original trilogy and I'm a little bit concerned.

While the original trilogy was clearly cut around the idea of no fuel and car culture, that was very relevant in the 80's.

However, Miller in his pursuit of turning Mad Max into a mythological story seems to have abandoned those roots and decided to make the new backstory as vague as possible, taking place in a location that's non descript, in a year we don't know when, nor why the world looks the way it does. The video game - believe it or not - shows us a lot about this world because it took Miller's ideas and without his supervision showed them to us (along with many other things crucial to the future of Mad Max movies). The way it presents itself is almost like some The Happening apocalyptic event where planes suddenly fall from the skies, fish in the oceans just die and oceans themselves evaporate. Famine and disease kills millions and there's only mentions of water wars let along oil wars. Even Miller said it himself "All bad things happen all at once next Thursday" it seems for Fury Road.

So the backdrop is completely different now, without any emphasis on oil or vehicles and the consequences of the wasteland growing from that.

In fact if you look at it, the only reason we had so much emphasis on cars in Fury Road wasn't because there was this dire need for maintaining vehicles for survival and being a nomad in the Wasteland like we've seen in MMBT, but instead, we had cars because Immortan conveniently turned cars into a religion. The need for fuel was eliminated entirely because Gas Town. We don't know where this movie takes place, why Buzzards speak Russian etc. This movie could take place literally anywhere, anytime and for any reason.

And that's what worries me because it opens up a window of opportunity to turn Mad Max into a generic post apocalyptic franchise.
The lines and reasons used to be clear, but now since it's all a fantasy campfire myth....

And in my opinion, that is what separates Mad Max from your Wasteland Weekend cosplayers, but if we're going to do away with the reasoning on top of which Mad Max was built then it seems like a valid concern for its future, no?

[Trundlefish]

I understand some of the points you make, but in a previous/recent thread you say – 'and I don't see how they could make one, let alone two Mad Max movies right now.'

Yet now you're talking about future films.

Are you privy to information that is unknown to those outside the world of M.M. film making? Or are you changing your mind purely on whatever opinion you may have at any given time?

I'm certainly not taking a dig in any way, just enquiring.

[Taipan]

I'm talking purely theoretically in this topic.
Realistically there are very slim chances of a new Mad Max movie being made in the next 3-4 years or so.

[Copwatch]

I think you're becoming far too concerned with the specifics of a backstory that has, in the films themselves at least, never been set in stone and for good reason.

[Taipan]

I think it's a valid concern because new foundations will shape new movies in very different ways.

Look what happened to MMBT when Miller decided to stray away from the concept, we got half of a Mad Max movie. The other was exploration of a tribal life that nobody really wanted.

Now that Miller seems to be actively removing the key ingredients of Mad Max movies (oil, car culture) and replacing them with generic explanations, I really don't know how Mad Max'ish the new Mad Max movies are going to be.

BTW, those rules have been set in stone behind the scenes, check out those production documents.

Mad Max 1 &2 official backstory

[AquaCola]

A lot of the points you mention is the reason why I liked some of the original artwork/concepts and game more.

I think Fury Road's setting would have worked better set on the ocean floor with rusted ships and submarines dotting the landscape like the game. That way the lack of roads, buildings etc could easily be explained and Gastown would make a bit more sense. With the drop in ocean levels they would have set up Gas refineries way out in a desperate attempt to tap the world's remaining resources.

[MWFV8]

Bravo.

This is the crux of what I've been complaining about for the past few years.

Fury Road is a lot of fun, with great costumes, amazing cars, and well executed stunts, but it isn't built on anything that resounds and distances itself from reality. It is now a fantasy franchise that has more in common with the average comic-book movie than it does with the films it stemmed from.

There's no undoing this either. The crowds want more mania and more ad-libbing to go along with their head-canon. They don't see it, but there are just as blindly devoted as the War Boys they love to quote.

[Taipan]

Bravo.

This is the crux of what I've been complaining about for the past few years.

Fury Road is a lot of fun, with great costumes, amazing cars, and well executed stunts, but it isn't built on anything that resounds and distances itself from reality. It is now a fantasy franchise that has more in common with the average comic-book movie than it does with the films it stemmed from.

There's no undoing this either. The crowds want more mania and more ad-libbing to go along with their head-canon. They don't see it, but there are just as blindly devoted as the War Boys they love to quote.

I was reading through some old Miller interviews and a certain thing kept repeating itself: Miller is not interested in vehicles, nor the car culture in Mad Max movies, he only cares about the story. It was Byron Kennedy who was the gearhead of the two and it's because of him we got the iconic Interceptor and the whole world of Mad Max 1 and 2. Now this might be an insignificant thing to point out but it's actually the essence of those movies. Everything we saw in MM1 and 2 stemmed from that fact, the whole world they had built was based on cars, mobility, how it shaped the landscape, why were they even using gas guzzlers to begin with, you had to move to survive. Since Byron's passing Miller focused more on storytelling instead of preserving the original idea of Mad Max movies. I still remember reading an interview with Terry Hayes where he said he HATED the cars in MM2, its core element. All credit where credit is due, he did come up with the backstory framework for the first 2 movies and the 3rd one too but if you first have a guy that essentially makes 2 movies about cars because he loves them and then you switch him out with someone who despises them with Miller in the middle only being interested in storytelling ... Then yeah, things will start to look different.

We really have to be thankful to people who surround Miller for pulling Fury Road off the way it did. If you look at the original concept designs by Brendan McCarthy you'll see that his first ideas of cars in Fury Road resembled 1930's tank cars. And he was the 'protector' of the franchise. He did definitely capture the spirit of Mad Max action, but some elements were way off. I believe Peter Pound picked it all up and thought to use hot rod imagery to bring it closer to the original movies, even though the whole concept didn't evolve naturally, it was attached to the movie in the form of a cult. Hell, even MMBT with its wacky car designs made some sense because of a new fuel which required a light frame, but in Fury Road the crucial element of cars was there because the main characters were brainwashed.

I don't know if I'm trying to document here how the franchise is changing shape, but I'm pretty sure we're not going to see another Road Warrior epic again with the way Miller's focus drifts into pure visual storytelling. There is much more to Mad Max movies than that, and slapping cars on top just won't cut it. And removing the motives for the whole franchise won't make it better either. Again, just remembering the interviews I read today (Omni Screen Flights interview from 1984) I was surprised how much focus went into the world of the first 2 movies. A clear definition of where it all came from - OIL WARS - and 3 decades later it's just turned into ... whatever-lypse.

[Trundlefish]

I think it's a valid concern because new foundations will shape new movies in very different ways.

Look what happened to MMBT when Miller decided to stray away from the concept, we got half of a Mad Max movie. The other was exploration of a tribal life that nobody really wanted.

Now that Miller seems to be actively removing the key ingredients of Mad Max movies (oil, car culture) and replacing them with generic explanations, I really don't know how Mad Max'ish the new Mad Max movies are going to be.

In my opinion (and please keep it to the forefront of your replies, for this is only my opinion), B.T. has the bigger and richest story to tell from all four M.M. films.

By not having cars/oil front and centre as in previous films, the world of Mad Max opened up and allowed a fresh approach to what had come before.

I personally think that this was the right move to make, rather than rehash either the first or second films.

Rightly or wrongly, much of F.R. has echoes of the second film, but in the same breath, is no lesser for it.

The sidestep (for want of a better word) that T.D. took was bold, and I imagine at the time, just what the franchise needed (to avoid being a copy of what preceded T.D.).

Again, this is only a view from one person. Everyone has their own opinion of what works/doesn't work in the M.M. franchise...and that's what makes it interesting!

[MWFV8]

a certain thing kept repeating itself: Miller is not interested in vehicles

I still remember reading an interview with Terry Hayes where he said he HATED the cars in MM2

in Fury Road the crucial element of cars was there because the main characters were brainwashed.

I'm pretty confident Miller's view of Roadwarrior fans became actualised in Fury Road. He see's us as brainwashed, petrolhead cultists.